vi OBSERVATIONS ON FOX-HUNTING 



Cook's parents were of the squirearchy, or addicted to field 

 sports ; his father appears to have been a merchant in Christ 

 Church, so their son John was probably not " to the manner 

 born," and very likely the first sportsman his family had 

 produced. Like many another Foxhunter, he was first 

 entered to hare, keeping a pack of harriers, and earning 

 considerable reputation as a slayer of hares before he came 

 of age. There was enough family money to send him into 

 the 28th Light Dragoons, but although he advanced to the 

 rank of Colonel, and even obtained in later life a salaried 

 military appointment, it is not as a soldier that he is presented 

 to posterity : — 



" Gaudet equis, canibusque, et aprici gramine campi." 



We do not know whether the 28th Light Dragoons took part 

 in Wellington's campaigns. If they did, they were unaccom- 

 panied by John Cook, whom the call to arms found counting 

 the Foxes' noses on his kennel door, and thinking what a 

 fine amateur huntsman Napoleon Bonaparte would have 

 undoubtedly become, if only the trumpet would cease to 

 blow and the war drum to throb. 



His first venture as M.F.H. was in The Thurlow country 

 in the year 1800, when Mr. Meynell was giving up The Quorn 

 after his victorious career of forty-seven seasons, and Mr. 

 Corbet and his Trojans were making the Foxes fly in AA'arwick- 

 shire and Shropshire. He hunted this country for four 

 seasons, and during this time married Miss Elizabeth Surtees, 

 the second daughter of Aubone Surtees of Dinsdale-on-Tees. 

 This family bears the same motto and crest as that of Surtees 

 of Hamsterlcy, which produced the famous Robert Smith 

 Surtees, the author of the sporting no\'els which have afforded 

 equal delight to the hunting man and to the student of early 

 Victorian manners and customs. It is needless to dwell here 

 upon the penetration and skill with which his characters are 

 delineated ; but the reader of Colonel Cook's work will be 



